E-mail can be hacked with considerably greater ease by some metrics, apparently.

That opinion is common since email is hacked a lot and fax is not. Yet what no one considers is that email is hardly ever hacked for information.

ElectricMonk wrote:

Logistics wrote:

I always wished someone would create some sort of hardware to convert modem to something that isn't so fragile, connection-wise. For instance, my 28.8 always got 26.4, Max and my 56k was always at something like 52k or 53k. It would be neat to create something that sits in-between the modem and the next point of communication so that it could always get a flawless 28.8 or 56k

It's a combination of overhead, and the quality of the twisted pair coming from the ped to your home/apartment. Even with heavy compression, you'll NEVER get the full 56K. That's just the sad state of how Dial-up connects to POTS.

What I meant was a device of sorts that would allow you to use the modem to access the internet over a digital connection such as cable or DSL. This is a hypothetical situation where the modem is the only option for communicating with the net.

You could use a modem to play a game of Battle Chess or Modem Wars with a friend. They don't have networking support.

shamino wrote:

I think PCI modems are the most useless component in old PCs. There's a massive glut of them and nobody wants them. Rarely the […]
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I think PCI modems are the most useless component in old PCs. There's a massive glut of them and nobody wants them. Rarely there might be an individual who needs 1, but that's it. No organization with a network of PCs, schools or otherwise, have any use for them in quantity. They might need network cards but not modems.

...

My pile of modems is starting to take more space than they deserve, and the PCI models especially are completely uninteresting and useless. If anything is disposable, I think these are. I suppose they might have some components worth salvaging, maybe.

...

This!

Why do I not trash them?

There used to be an app called PhoneTray Free that would let you do some cool stuff with a modem.

obobskivich wrote:

but I have that gnawing hunch that after dumping off all of them I'll come across a need (like after dumping all of my EDO DIMMs (which hadn't been used in a decade)

That gnawing hunch has forced me to keep the last two cards, but man I haven't even had a phone line since 99 -- these have got to be the most useless things I keep saving. But mainly because I keep kicking myself over "useless" stuff that I didn't.

Speaking of Collections, has no-one kept their external modems? I do miss those. In the day, the old slower modem always had a decent trade value, so none survived here.

pewpewpew wrote:

Speaking of Collections, has no-one kept their external modems? I do miss those. In the day, the old slower modem always had a decent trade value, so none survived here.

I still have my old USR 56k serial modem. I used to think it would be good to have in an emergency, but since I don't have a dialup ISP account I'm not sure how. Whatever, it's the best modem I ever had, so I'm keeping it. If I ever did need to use dialup again, that's the modem I'd want to use.

shamino wrote:

I used to think it would be good to have in an emergency, but since I don't have a dialup ISP account I'm not sure how.

Freenet. Find your local, and run things once to test and register. Then tape the connection info to the modem.

a Dreamcast dial up server? Probably the only way you can play Phantasy Star Online multiplayer on it.

This is what you do with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5TGWtK70-E

Jorpho wrote:

I'm told that faxing is still regarded as considerably more secure than E-mail.